Planning a Party

*** Update: I added the link for the spinach dip! My only change was using reduced-fat mayo and cream cheese instead of the full-fat. ***

I love having an excuse to cook for people, probably because (though they have many good qualities) the people in my house do not get excited about food. Most of the time. There is an unwritten rule in my house apparently, which states that at any given meal at least one person may not like what is served. I think they decide ahead of time who that will be. But I digress ... Party food! That's what we're talking about today, really.

When I know people are coming over, my first thought is what to feed them. My first step from there is to pull out my "handy-dandy ... notebook!" (sorry, three kids and all ...) I've mentioned it before, but it's basically a listing of every magazine and cookbook in my house along with which recipes I want to try.

Armed with a pen and an index card, I flip through and write down the recipes I think I'll use. Tonight I have a jewelry party planned so I just need snack foods. Since it's St. Patrick's Day I kind of had green in mind and ended up settling on Lemon Burst Tartlets (which I changed to lime), a hot spinach dip, and my potato-leek pizza. I also chose Chocolate Nutella Cookies because I've been dying to make them! I'll serve baby carrots and good crackers with the spinach dip. My basic outline for party food is to make sure the foods will complement each other, and to provide a mix of what I think of as "salty and sweet". This time I'm a bit apprehensive about serving a spinach dish and a dish with leeks since I usually try to make sure I have at least one thing that's neutral that almost everyone likes. We'll see how it goes tonight!